It was a hard sliding tackle, delivered a moment too late, in the FA Cup final in London last month. Ballack’s right ankle crumpled and with it so did his World Cup plans.
Ballack, Germany’s captain, suffered torn ligaments on the play. It happened in Chelsea’s 56th game of the season, the 45th Ballack had played for the club since August.
Some of the world’s most accomplished and explosive players are limping into the World Cup, if they have made it here at all, and few are as bruised and battered as the stars of the English Premier League, where the physical nature of play is particularly unforgiving.
“England is probably one of the roughest leagues in the world,” said US goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, who plays for Wolverhampton.
“A foul in England is a foul. In another country, they’re wondering if it’s a red card or a yellow card.”
Throughout Europe, players go all out from August to May, playing in as many as 60 games. The crowded schedule –– which includes league games as well as domestic and European cup competitions and occasional national team games –– tires them out and leaves them susceptible to injury.
In Europe, this glut of games at the height of the season is known as fixture congestion, and in the Premier League the toll it takes on players is exacerbated by rough play.
Ballack’s Chelsea team-mates Michael Essien of Ghana and John Obi Mikel of Nigeria will miss the World Cup because of knee injuries. Another Chelsea star, Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast, survived the season but injured his elbow in an exhibition game on Friday.
He had surgery on Saturday and might not play in South Africa.
Spain, the European champion and a favorite to win the World Cup, could be without its top striker, Fernando Torres, who plays for Liverpool.
“This is my third season, and I’m still amazed,” Torres said in April. “The English league really wears down a player.”
Liverpool played 38 Premier League games, two FA Cup games and eight Europa League matches. Torres, 26, appeared in 32 of those games, scoring 22 goals, but was slowed by a knee injury that has still not healed completely. He had an operation in January, causing him to miss a month of action, and another in April. He has not played since.
“I just can’t imagine what state I’ll be in within five or six years if I continue to play here,” Torres said after his second operation.Torres was missed in Spain’s warm-up match against South Korea on Thursday, an anemic 1-0 victory.
In Madrid, coach Vicente del Bosque said he was optimistic Torres would be ready for the World Cup and said he might play in a warm-up against Poland on Tuesday.
Del Bosque has other personnel worries. Midfielder Cesc Fabregas, who plays for Arsenal, just returned to action after fracturing his fibula in March. He played in 35 of Arsenal’s 55 games before hopping off the field in pain near the end of a Champions League quarterfinal against Barcelona. Earlier in the season, he had a hamstring injury.
Injuries are part of the game in any league. But when players get minor injuries, and fixture congestion reduces the time they have to heal, those injuries can worsen. And the situation seems most acute in the Premier League.
Barcelona played 54 games in all competitions this season. The team’s midfield general, Xavi Hernandez, and his deputy, Andres Iniesta, played through a number of minor injuries, but neither ended the season as beat up as Torres.
Germany, another World Cup contender, will rely on seven players from Bayern Munich, a team that played more than 50 games, including the Champions League final two weeks ago. But despite such a long and difficult season, in which Bayern won the Bundesliga title and the German Cup, the German players will enter the World Cup relatively healthy, except for Ballack, the only member of the team who plays in England.
The English team’s offense has been handicapped by injuries to the striker Wayne Rooney, and the team lost its captain, Rio Ferdinand, when he damaged knee ligaments in practice last week. Rooney scored 34 goals for Manchester United this season, but he also hurt his calf in October, then strained ankle ligaments in March. He now has a strained groin. Back problems plagued Ferdinand all season.
This is the second time Rooney has carried the bumps, bruises and breaks of a long club season into the World Cup. In 2006, he broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his right foot on the eve of the tournament in Germany, touching off a feverish discussion of podiatry in England’s news media.
Rooney has played in 44 of Manchester United’s 63 games since August and in eight more for England in the run-up to the World Cup. He looks and plays like a battering ram, refusing to shy away from tackles.
His aggressive style is prized by coaches in England and celebrated by fans. It is both the appeal and the danger of the Premier League; the lucrative salaries the players earn might be considered hazard pay.
Clint Dempsey, an American who plays for Fulham, said: “You see people taking risks that sometimes they normally wouldn’t take. They get caught up in the game.”
Game after game after game.